Confronting the Dead

By Richard Carl Mather

Confronting the Dead – 26th March 2025 

So, descend the steep hill  

Slowly, go on  

Go past the lunch cart  

— Scolding tea, coffee  

Hotdogs, burgers  

Fried onions, ketchup —  

— Succulent dark odours —  

Smells so foody  

— Mingling  

With exhaust of traffic —  

That they foment in your gut  

A hunger you didn’t know you had.  

Go ahead, under  

The railway bridge, turn right,  

Allotments to your left  

— Carrots, beans, raspberries  

Basil, rosemary, parsley  

Marigolds, sunflowers —  

Big billboard to your right,  

Advertising what?  

— Aftershave, expensive, nice bottle —  

No, well how about a new car,  

— 4x4, hybrid, leather seats —  

They can create in you a desire,  

A desire you didn’t know you had.  

Carry on a minute, and end up  

In the shadow  

Of a disused chapel  

— Three in the afternoon  

The hour of death  

All over the world —  

See the long black cars  

Unmoving,  

— Black hat coffin carriers  

With hands full —  

As you walk through marble slabs  

Newly minted,  

Also graves old, dull and forgotten,  

In the rain-roiled mud  

— Men in brown caps  

Shovels of soil —  

What’s written on the stones  

Is not necessarily what is said at home.  

Now come to where she lies  

Interred in the raw earth, concealed  

Over  

— The grave is fresh  

Soil richly turned —  

But strong feelings are not  

So easily buried.  

She left too quickly, without  

A ‘goodbye’ or a ‘so long’,  

Not even a ‘see you in the next world’.  

You, though, have a lot to say,  

Things unspoken in life  

That must be said  

— Though you can’t imagine  

Standing there, with her beneath  

Your feet, your  

Lips  

Moving in thin air —  

Do not worry. words weighed  

Dead in the mind  

Will come  

Alive  

On the tongue, finding  

Body in the outgoing breath.  

But look, don’t go empty handed.  

Make a good impression.  

Bring gifts of pink  

And white carnations,  

Orchids, a few roses  

—  Some ferns too  

(Doesn’t green mean life renewed?) —  

When confronting the dead,  

One should always  

Be armed with flowers.